


Graveside Conversation

by vassalady



Category: Nomad (Comics)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-03
Updated: 2015-02-03
Packaged: 2018-03-10 07:03:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3281219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vassalady/pseuds/vassalady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Julia visits Jack's grave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Graveside Conversation

**Author's Note:**

> I'm halfway through Nomad, unabashedly love Jack and baby Bucky, even though he did kidnap her, and I love being able to pull the canon that Dani becomes Captain America in the future.
> 
> References to Captain America vol 1, vol 5, and Nomad vols 1 and 2.

The cemetery was empty. Julia was thankful there was a cemetery at all; if SHIELD had done anything right by Jack Monroe, it had been giving him a burial and plaque for the few remains that were left behind. He had received more than being stored in a forgotten room for years on end.

Technically, Julia shouldn’t have even known about Jack. She had Chase to thank for hacking the SHIELD files.

Julia loved her parents fiercely. However, when they told her she was adopted, she wanted to know where she came from. She wanted to know where a handful of vague, incongruous memories, of someone with dark eyes and a scratchy chin who was not the father she knew, came from. And her search ended in a fake birth certificate authorized by the very outfit she sometimes worked with, well… She had to dig deeper.

This led her to Jack Monroe.

“Hey,” she said, crouching down. She brushed back the grass that obscured the edges. “I’m not really sure what to say. I mean…” What was she even doing here? Julia shook her head.

“It’s pretty unorthodox, I know.” Julia shrugged a shoulder. “But I had to come see you. Tell you that I’m okay. That I’m happy.”

She knew everything. She knew he hadn’t been a 60-year-old man the plaque pretended him to be. (She was surprised they’d kept his original birth date at all.) She knew his health had been failing the years before his death. She knew that he’d been assassinated and framed, and it was only because of Captain Rogers that he even was cleared for it. 

She also knew he wasn’t her biological father either. But he was the closest thing she had.

“It’s weird to call you dad, isn’t it? I mean, I have my dad, and then there’s you, but… You’d probably like it though, right?”

So he had kidnapped her from her biological mother. Yeah, it was pretty shitty, illegal, and overall fucked up, and the search for her mother had wound up a big fat nowhere. But Julia knew that Jack had cared for her, at least, as best he could. It was in every report. It was in those vague memories. So here she was.

She rubbed her hands together to chase awy the cold. “I’m following in your footsteps. Kind of. Unintentionally, though. Worked a little with SHIELD at first, but then Dani sort of half recruited me…” Julia smiled down at the plaque. “I’m going by Bucky now, you know? Because of you.”

It was the only name she had dug up before Julia. It seemed appropriate.

“I asked Captain Rogers about you. I didn’t tell him who I was, but I think… well, he must have known, I think.” He had given her a look before answering. He’d have had access to all the SHIELD files about her. Hell, he may have even met her as a baby, back when Jack was taking care of her. “Said you could be stubborn, but you always tried to be better. You might forget from time to time, but you learned to pull your punches.”

That was until his mental and physical health had started failing. She wasn’t sure Captain Rogers knew all about that. He’d been… preoccupied with other matters.

Julia chewed her lip as she sat silently for several minutes. Maybe this had been a stupid idea.

“When I was eight, I decided I wanted to be a superhero. I had been watching My Little Pony, and then there was an urgent news report.”

She could still feel the moment. Her mother was finishing up dinner. The smell of garlic and butter filled the house, but what Julia tasted was chocolate chip cookie. She’d snuck one out of the pantry.

When the report cut into her show, she saw, there on TV, She-Hulk rescue someone. She watched in awe as Spectrum flew in to help, and then there were half a dozen heroes, Captain America included, digging through rubble, taking down the enemy comabtents, and getting people to safety. 

Julia rocked back on her heels to look up at the cloudless sky. “I studied criminal justice. I joined SHIELD. When I met Dani, well… she offered me everything I wanted. Even more.”

She fiddled with the ring around her finger.

“Sometimes I wonder if…” Julia shook her head. “No, it doesn’t matter, really. But… I wish I could have met you. When I was older. You know?”

She touched the plaque again, fingers tracing over his name.

Some people went down as heroes. She’d seen them, her friends, get hurt and worse while on the job.

Some people, though, got shot in the chest in a bar parking lot, dying as no one but an old footnote.

“I’m sorry you didn’t get that hero’s ending,” she said softly. From Captain Rogers’s words, from the files, from everything she could find out about Jack, that’s what she believed he’d want. Not for the glory, but for doing so in the process of helping people.

There was only a faint sting behind her eyes, but it wasn’t for Jack. It was for the thought that the same might happen to her. If she was to go down, she wanted to go down fighting.

“I’m really happy where I am now,” she said. “I love being a hero. The thrill, the exhilaration, the knowledge that I’ve done good-”

Her phone rang. It was Dani. Julia stood up as she answered.

“What’s up, Cap?”

Dani nodded to her on the holographic screen. “ _We need you to get back asap, Jules. We’ve got intel on a New AIM cell that’s got some kind of new weapon._ ”

“Be there in the hour. Got the jet cycle.”

Before she hung up, Dani said, “ _You doing okay?_ ”

She was the only one who knew where Julia was.

“Yeah,” Julia said, smiling. “I’m fine.”

Dani returned her smile. “ _Okay, well, we’ll be waiting for you. Travel safe._ ”

“Love you.”

The screen disappeared.

Julia crouched down again. “I don’t know if I’ll come back anytime soon, but I’ll try.”

Jack had not been and was still not one of the most important people in Captain Rogers’s life. He wasn’t one in Julia’s, not since she was a baby. He hadn’t been important in anyone’s life in a very long time, even before his death.

But Julia still cared.

“Thank you,” she said. “I don’t know where I would have ended up without you, and it’s pointless to think about it. Better off, worse off, it’s meaningless because you did take care of me for a time. And I just want you to know that I am happy where I am now. So thank you.”

Julia gave the plaque one last glance before she left.

The cemetery was quiet once more.


End file.
